In this episode Duane and Leslee Powers return together to talk about the struggles of letting go and beginning the process of moving on. This is a very complicated topic that many have difficulties with. Duane asks Leslee the way she helps her own clients go through this process. Later in the episode Duane and Leslee talk about manifestation and what it all means.

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The Struggles of “Letting Go” 00:53 - Duane talks to Leslee about her process of helping her own clients to “let go” of the past and move into the future. Leslee talks about how everyone has their own timeline and a lot of it depends on the stage of the process. Sometimes she has clients who call her the very next day wanting the pain to go away. She recommends people first accept where they are and second to not rush anything. She cautious people to wait to run into a new relationship.

Duane discusses how when you are getting your validation from another person and how that is a dangerous place to be in. He then asks Leslee how she would approach this and her response was profound. She asks her clients, “when was the last time that you did anything for yourself?” She continues to ask, “Who are you?”. The entire point is to get the client focused on themselves so they can really start to heal.

Leslee talks about how during the healing process it can be a minute to minute thing. Duane commented how his own recovery was minute to minute and how difficult it was. They both discuss how most people healing from this haven’t even been given the permission to focus on themselves. Duane talks about how it is so easy to get involved in a new relationship to mask what is going on.

Coaching People Who Are Struggling 06:38 - Leslee talks about how she doesn’t set boundaries for people making their own decisions in the coaching environment. She says she doesn’t like to put boundaries on because she doesn’t want to have the “she says I can’t” situation where now they want to. It’s one of those things where she would caution them on it but she isn’t going to abandon someone who is doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

She encourages people to seek out new friendships instead of relationships. This is a problem where people typically are surrounded by toxic people. Most people have to remove those toxic people and replace them with good quality and supportive people. She also talks bout how we have to have to difficult conversations, “What was it about me that attracted and made all these people attractive to me?” What was I feeling about myself to make me think this was okay. Leslee also says “people pleasing” is a big problem and even when people do not really accept that they are it is a huge reason they end up in these situations.

Duane's relationship and the baggage 08:44 - Duane talks about his relationships with Debby and how they started out with him believing that he was healed and had worked through his issues with his past relationship. When you come from a toxic relationship there is a tremendous amount of baggage. Duane comments how you own it to your new future partner to heal before bringing them into this situation. Leslee also said that we have no business bringing anyone into our chaos until we are healed ourselves.

Leslee comments how everyone is a work in progress and we really have no business dating until we’ve truly healed from the damage of the toxic relationship. Duane brings up had he been a client with Leslee she would have been able to ask those pointed questions to really test where he was. The key part of this is to push those trigger points and see what the reaction is. You can get comfortable in your situation thinking you are healed but you know for sure when you do not have the anger response when certain topics are brought up. The problem is as soon as those issues you haven’t healed from come up the anger and pain comes back with a vengeance.

What's going on inside? Are you lonely? 13:56 - Leslee mentions how when the triggers lay dormant we forget about them. Duane asks Leslee what would she do to “test the waters” to make sure he was healed before starting a new relationship. Her main advice would be to not go in “head first” because there is a possibility this new person could be important to help you see things in a new light. Go gently and keep asking yourself if you are doing this for both of us, or because you are lonely? She recommends that you never date when you’re longly just as you never want to shop when you’re hungry. Leslee also talks about how we need to move very very slowly and to not jump into things too fast or under the duress of being lonely.

The sweet spot when you could care less and are able to spend time with yourself. But when you are struggling with the weekends being alone. When you don’t care and when you are happy being by yourself is when you are starting to heal. Duane mentions that is where he was mentally when he met his girlfriend. He also said he wish he would have recognized that he still had a lot of anger toward his past relationship. When the his ex found out about his new relationship and the drama started his anger flared back up. Leslee commented that typically when the exes find out there is going to be hell fire in response. This is also important to ask yourself if it is worth it to bring someone new into this chaos.

Duane closed this section off with the comment that if someone could have asked the question on all the hot-button issues that really get you angry you might have more work to do before you are ready to move on. Leslee talks about how being emotionally healthy takes time. People need to understand and not beat themselves up on how long it takes to heal from this. They both talk about the normal trend is approximately two years for you to heal and be ready to start moving forward.

Learning to focus on yourself 19:20 - Leslee talks about how when you learn to focus on yourself and you realize that you do matter. This takes a lot of time to work through this. It is probably the first time in their lives when they’ve been asked what they like - what makes them happy. Most people in these situations you just don’t know what your happiness is. When you’ve been focusing on others for so long it is hard to learn how to answer these questions. But Leslee says if you’re at this point it is okay and there is nothing wrong with take the time to learn who you really are. Leslee also comments on how “just one day I felt better” and now all of the work just builds upon itself to get to you that point. They both discuss how crazy it is and it is hard to explain to people how this just “happens”.